It seems like you sincerely can't understand why he'd be seen as heroic. Here's an account of his last moments. For context, the Bolivian government had captured Guevera, but wanted to make it look like he'd been killed in a firefight, rather than executed.
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A few minutes later, Sergeant Terán entered the hut to shoot him, whereupon Guevara reportedly stood up and spoke to Terán what were his last words: "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!" Terán hesitated, then pointed his self-loading M2 carbine at Guevara and opened fire, hitting him in the arms and legs. Then, as Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out, Terán fired another burst, fatally wounding him in the chest. Guevara was pronounced dead at 1:10 PM local time according to Rodríguez. In all, Guevara was shot nine times by Terán. This included five times in his legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, and once in the chest and throat.
Honest question: Is there any answer to OP's question that would not get downvoted? Is my original answer being downvoted because it's articulated poorly, or because people don't like the answer?
> it might be worth considering Che Guevara - who is a "ubiquitous countercultural symbol" [Wikipedia] and yet had a fairly atrocious record on human rights
My reply to that comment is an attempt to explain why Guevara became a "ubiquitous countercultural symbol" -- because of the substance of his life's work and his tragic death.
Is that a tangent, or an irrelevant detail?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/un-official-re...
My take on it has always been that this is the result of allowing crazy fucks to become professors at universities. It is now beyond obvious just how damaging this has been. We have allowed our youth to be indoctrinated by crazy idiots for decades. Given this context nothing I see today surprises me.
The damage will take decades to repair.
I'm thinking that plenty of younger people - especially ones frustrated or angry at the seemingly-poor prospects which the existing social order seemed to offer for their futures - were biased in favor of violent rebels long before there were such things as "professors" or "universities".
Maybe you should actually learn about it too. Rather than calling people who disagree with your view of history crazy or idiotic.
I am not calling “people” idiots. Get it right. I am calling people indoctrinated into believing Che was anything less than a monster idiots.
Ask cubans what they think of someone wearing a Che t-shirt.
Better yet, if you are so confident that you know the truth, go get yourself a bright Che t-shirt and walk around Little Havanna for a day. And then, if you are still able to walk, jump over to Cuba and do the same.
Good luck.
The only thing worse I can imagine would be a Hitler shirt or a communist shirt of some kind (Over 60 million people killed).
I forgot to add that he was a racist (he thought blacks were, well, animals, to be used and abused) and a homophobe (he just wanted to kill them all).
That, among other things, is why I say idolizing this monster is a monumental display of stupidity, ignorance or both.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkYIW6NUxXo
https://www.libertaddigital.com/cultura/historia/2017-10-09/...
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-41513971
https://www.cubanet.org/noticias/che-guevara-un-sociopata-as...
https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Milco-Baute/dp/B08BWFKBPG
Etc.
Wait, you don't speak Spanish? Well. Do you really think the material published by deranged American communist academics even remotely approximates reality? Look at what they have done to our kids. You have a professor --on video-- saying that what Hamas did to kids in Israel was "exhilarating". These people have serious mental illness.
Also Spanish is one of the easiest languages to translate so it’s pretty easy to verify.
Oh and you should drop the “deranged American communist academics” line. You anticommunist, right wing ideologues are always so obvious.
No.
You don't have to be right wing to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that communism has been one of the most destructive ideologies on this planet.
I am not a right wing anything. I am a classical liberal/libertarian and an atheist. Which, if I am to generalize, means I tend to use critical thinking and logic to guide my view of the world to the extent possible. It isn't always black and white. With regards to communism, it very much is. It is a failed murderous ideology. It has destroyed everything it has touched.
Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
To say those teaching it as a virtuous ideology are deranged would only be wrong if they were proven to be more ignorant than a brick. It's stupid beyond measurement.
BTW, my family survived this shit. I am not regurgitating something a professor or TV pundit told me. My grandparents saw members of their family murdered by their government. So, yeah, think what you wish. You clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Go live in one of these shitholes for a decade and see what you come back with.